The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“REMEMBERING SENATOR VANCE HARTKE” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Senate section on pages S5198-S5199 on June 5, 2008.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
REMEMBERING SENATOR VANCE HARTKE
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, it is a privilege today to submit to the Record an essay by Jan Hartke, my friend and the son of our late colleague, Senator Vance Hartke of Indiana.
William Butler Yeats famously wrote: ``my glory was I had such friends.'' To know Vance Hartke as a cherished friend, as an ally to all who are not just unashamed but actually proud to seek peace, as a fellow Navy man, and particularly as a mentor, protector, and champion for those of us who returned from Vietnam to oppose the war--really, that was all the glory or honor any of us ever really need or deserve.
Vance's passing hit me like a punch to the gut; I was driving in New Hampshire in July of that long hot summer of 2003, in the middle of a Presidential campaign, when the jarring news came to me--and brought back memories of my earliest years as an antiwar activist, and of a public servant who shared our cause and our concerns. Then and throughout his life, Vance was compelling in the absolute sincerity of his character. He was spurred to soul-searching by America's disastrous intervention in Vietnam. He found himself asking, as many now ask of Iraq, not just ``How do we end this war?'' but ``How do we learn from our mistakes and end the mindset that got us into war?''
It was a profound moral compass that led Senator Hartke to work with Senators Mark Hatfield, Jennings Randolph, Sam Nunn, and Spark Matsunaga on legislation to found the U.S. Institute of Peace, whose continued work studying conflict and building understanding has become a testament to the nobility of Vance's aspirations and the life he lived in support of them.
With the groundbreaking of a beautiful new building, the organization built to house Senator Hartke's ideas finally has a home worthy of its founder.
Here, for the Senate Record, is a powerful essay--which captures Vance's vision as only his son could--in honor of this historic event.
I ask unanimous consent to have the essay to which I referred printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
New Peace Building on Nation's Mall
A new building dedicated to international peace will begin to rise in Washington, D.C. between the Lincoln Memorial and the Kennedy Center at the northwest corner of the National Mall during a groundbreaking ceremony on June 5, 2008. President Bush and Speaker Pelosi will offer remarks.
The building will house the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), with its headquarters and public education center, an idea whose roots can be traced back to President George Washington and the framers of the U.S. Constitution.
The building will not be a monument to an individual or commemorate a significant event in our nation's history. Rather, it will be a place where the hard work of peace goes on, where globally recognized experts on conflict resolution will seek ways to prevent accidental and unnecessary wars, limit their scope and severity, and identify and facilitate exit strategies. The USIP building will symbolize America's most cherished ideal--enduring peace on earth.
The design of this historic building by world-renowned architect, Moshe Safdie, is in perfect harmony with its noble purpose. From its imaginative white roof shaped like the wings of a dove, to its open and transparent glass atrium, the USIP building seems infused with the hope and promise and work of peace.
The idea for the USIP arose during the Vietnam War, when Senator Vance Hartke tried to make the case to his friend, President Johnson, that the war was a terrible mistake, based on a misinterpretation of history, culture, and geopolitics. Unfortunately, President Johnson interpreted his dissent as disloyalty to him and his Administration. Nor did the other institutions make the case for peace. Even the State Department was for war.
At that point, Senator Hartke realized that something was missing from the Nation's decision-making apparatus on the great issues of war and peace. He saw the need for a non-partisan entity with analytical depth and institutional heft whose sole mandate was to advance the cause of peace. Joined by Senator Mark Hatfield, they introduced legislation that laid the cornerstone for the eventual creation of the USIP.
The legislation was moved forward through a commission headed by Senator Spark Matsunaga, whose members were appointed by President Carter. Public hearings were held across the country. The upshot was that experts from a wide variety of fields were offended by the notion that the search for peace was wishful thinking and futile. With a sweeping charter, the bi-partisan legislation was passed and signed into law by President Reagan in 1984.
``The somewhat radical notion underlying USIP's creation,'' Corine Hegland wrote in a perceptive article in the National Journal,'' was that the science of peace could be studied, refined, and taught in much the same manner as military skills and strategies had been consciously honed for centuries.''
``We got it wrong after 9/11,'' as USIP's Executive Vice-President Patricia Thomson sees it. ``We restructured our homeland-security institutions, but we should have restructured our foreign-policy institutions.'' The current work of the USIP still encompasses basic research but increasingly its storehouse of best peace practices has been used and applied in countries around the world, wherever hot spots flare. USIP's Chairman, Robinson West, and President, Richard Solomon, have mobilized their staff of 142 employees to rethink conflicts with a bold view toward preventing and ending them.
The body of work of USIP shows an evolving institution whose basic values lie at the heart of civilization, whether it is recruiting statesmen like Lee Hamilton and James Baker III to lead the Iraq Study Group, or the efforts to implement the Dayton Peace Accords led by former Chairman Chester Crocker.
Forty years after he envisioned the creation of USIP, Senator Hartke's challenging and prophetic words still ring true: ``I have the unshakable conviction that we have it within our power to end this war (Vietnam) and the syndrome of war itself. . . . For in the end, it is the dreamer who is the greatest realist.''
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